In preparation, speech writers had drawn upon the fact that more than 16 million servicemen had returned to private life at the end of World War II and produced an abundance of children later to be known as “baby boomers.”

Using this fact to dramatize the need to overhaul the supplemental retirement system, these writers noted the fact that seven million six hundred thousand births above normal were recorded between 1945 and 1965. The child-bearing years for most of these young servicemen and their spouses. They wrote this into Clinton’s speech, on cue cards and on his monitor as 7.6 million baby boomers looming on the horizon and about to begin retiring in the new millennium.

Unfortunately, when Clinton came to that part of his speech he missed the decimal point. Instead of talking about seven million baby boomers, he told the nation that 76 million baby boomers were due to put a strain on the Social Security system and that we must “fix the roof while the sun is shining.”

In other words, while enjoying a positive economy we must take steps to ensure the viability of Social Security. Raising retirement age, raising the cap on income related to FICA taxes, and other fixes would increase Social Security’s life span and, of course, bring more booty to government coffers. More surplus to rob.

No one questioned this figure and no one corrected it. The loyal press and television media immediately followed up with stories bolstering the false figure, some getting it wrong but most putting it somewhere between 70 and 80 million baby boomers. (see samples)

To this day, many still believe that hordes of baby boomers, more than half of today’s 141 million workforce, are going to begin retiring shortly and will not be replaced by even more people from following generations because they represent a unique phenomena in the birth rate. Even Alan Greenspan, referred to this fairy tale in question and answer period of his January 2000 report to the Senate Budget Committee.

All anyone needed to do to dispel this falsehood was to look at the census totals decade to decade. Base figures readily available to anyone with an Internet connection and access to the Census Bureau’s pages.

Consumer product companies, marketing and media people who pay dearly for the complete census reports, and honest politicians (if there is such a thing) never bothered to take the time to look. Or, if they did, saw no point in contradicting the President.

As a result, we are left with suppositions about the “dumbing of America,” fear or cooperation of the so-called “watchdog” media, or a highly effective propaganda machine used to instill fear in the citizenry.

What’s more, the true figure of seven million births above normal during this baby-boomer period did little more than help put our population growth back on a normal path.

The Great Depression of the Thirties was a time when few wanted or could afford to bring children into the world and few wanted to migrate to this country despite the rise of Hitler in Europe. Masses were unemployed, soup kitchens and bread lines were everywhere, and made up welfare jobs like the CCC and WPA were used by the government to dole out jobs and lend some dignity to accepting handouts. People calculated square roots by hand and dug ditches only to fill them up again.

The rate of population growth dropped more than in half during the Thirties. And these smaller numbers represent the people retiring today. No one mentions the fact that they did their part to carry Social Security without a hitch for forty or fifty years.

Instead, we worry about people living longer and a fictitious number of baby boomers. Neither represents anything but minor adjustments for the Social Security supplemental retirement system.

The Social Security Administration is an organization based outside the Washington Beltway in Baltimore, Maryland, maintaining offices in every major city, delivering monthly checks precisely on time, and operating on less than one percent of its budget. What might very well be the only efficient federal government organization.

The Social Security Trust Fund is another matter entirely. It’s a slush fund for the Beltway Bandits to rob with impunity. The more “surplus” workers contribute, the more the government steals.